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[Chriamon]

Some of these cards were stolen and/or inspired from other threads, and then modified for playtesting, so if one of these is your card let me know and I will credit you, I don't recall where I got all of the ideas from.


Lucky Break - 2$
+1 Card
+1 Action
Return a card from your hand to the supply. If you did, gain a card costing the same amount as the returned card and put it into your hand.

Playtest notes: It was hard to gauge how strong this effect would be, I initially priced the card at 5. After playtesting it, the effect is interesting, but weak enough to be on a 2 cost card. In games where this card was playtested, it was bought with 2$, but never bought when there was more than 2$ in hand.



Silver Amulet - 5$
+1 Card
+1 Action
+2$
Discard a card.

Playtest notes: This is an oasis that gives +2 instead of +1, however when I created and named the card I didnt even think about oasis, this card was inspired because I wanted to create a deck that could native village a province every turn in a 5 card deck, and that card would also be useful in a normal scenario. In playtesting, the card always seemed powerful, but its no Lab, in all of the games it was playtested, the person who bought the most of these lost, and in about 60% of the games this was in, the player ignoring it won the game (mostly playtested in 3 and 4 player games, with a few 2 player games)



Battle Charge - $4
Action - Attack

+3 Cards

Reveal a Card from your hand. Each other player reveals the card on top of their deck.

Discard the card(s) with the highest cost in coins, for each other card, discard or trash it, your choice.

The owners of the trashed cards may gain a card costing up to 2$ less than the trashed card.

Playtest notes: This attack was inspired by the "make a card based on a boardgame" thread, I saw a card called "stratego" and I tried to make it work as a real card. First few iterations were weak, this card was settled upon, it seems rather weak in play, but it has moments where it shines. Overall, weakish, but still a solid option.


Scavenger - $4
Action - Duration
   
While this is in play, whenever you discard during your action phase, +1$.
(+1$ per discard source, not +1$ per card discarded)
+2 Cards
Discard a card from your hand.

At the start of your next turn:
+1 Card
Discard a card from your hand.

Playtest notes: the first few iterations of this card were super strong (even stronger than this), this was settled upon, and this card is either a decent buy, or a really strong card, depending on the set. Note in your evaluation of this card, its +1$ per discard source, i.e. cards like golem give just +1$ from their discard, cards like hamlet can give up to +2$ if you discard for both sources of discard. In the games when this was very strong (hamlet and a couple more discarders in makes this REALLY strong), it was considered still fun to play.



Celtic Metal - 5$
Action - Attack

+4 Cards
Discard a card and then trash a card.
Each other player chooses one: he discards a card and then trashes a card; or he gains a Curse card.

Playtest notes: A pretty fun card to play. A previous version of the card gave +5 Cards just to see how broken that would be, turned out to be very broken. +3 cards was the initial version, and this card was deemed weak, +4 cards seems to be a good balance.



Untapped Ruins - 4$
Action

+1 Action
Discard any number of cards from your hand, +1 Action per card discarded.

Playtest notes: An interesting card, everyone I played with liked it, but it never really "stands out." Would probably be buffed if it were changed at all.



Villa- $6
Action - Victory
+1 Action
If you would draw a card while Villa is in play, discard a card after your action phase is over, and gain +1 VP token if you did (before you play your first treasure).
----------
1 VP

Playtest notes:This one has not been playtested, would like to hear others opinions before I give mine.



Township - $5
Action

+1 Card
+2 Actions

Choose one: set aside a card from your hand face down onto your Township mat; or put all cards from your mat into your hand.

You may look at the cards on your mat at any time; return them to your deck at the end of the game.

Playtest notes: This is a stronger Native Village. Hasn't been playtested.

Lemme know what you guys think.

[ycz6]

Is Battle Charge actually weakish? It seems quite strong; better than Smithy in engines and almost as good for BM.

[Chriamon]

Is Battle Charge actually weakish? It seems quite strong; better than Smithy in engines and almost as good for BM.

Well, it is one of the cards that got less play than the others, but the general consensus is that it WAS weak (used to be +3 cards and the effect would often help your opponent, it got buffed to give you the choice of whether they discard or trash, and most agreed that it was balanced now) So I guess its not really weak now, but since the first iteration was weak and it tainted people's opinions of it towards the weak side. I guess that what you say is true, but nobody tried it with big money, so I can't comment on that part

[randomdragoon]

My thoughts:

Lucky break: it doesn't need the "if you do" clause, since the first effect is mandatory and the second effect will fail if you fail to do the first one anyway (see remake)

Silver amulet: Unlike lab, it's not spammable because it reduces your handsize, so I'm not surprised that the person who bought too many of these lost. I woudn't compare this to lab or even Market, but rather Upgrade. Both give +1 card/+1 action but ultimately reduces your handsize; Silver amulet temporarily changes one of your cards into a silver and upgrade permenantly changes one of your cards into something better (or nothing, in the case of copper/curse). It would seem Upgrade is better at the beginning, but Silver amulet would get good when you start greening. Also, Silver Amulet seems like it would be strong with a "draw up to X" card like Library.

Battle Charge seems too good. It's almost strictly better than Smithy, which is not a bad card at all. Remember, Masquerade, which is +2 cards/trash a card from your hand is one of the best actions in the game. Also, I think you could lead to a degenerate game in 4p if 3 of the players agree to choose "trash" every single time they play it.

Scavenger: The "While this is in play" line would be at the bottom of the card separated by a horizontal line. The whole "discard source" concept seems confusing though.

Celtic Metal: interesting card, gives players a way to trash curses they might choose to gain from this. The attack might actually be a boon for the opponents, at least in the early stages of the game (discard an estate, trash an estate)


Untapped ruins: My initial assessment is that this card seems weak. A card that gives just +2 actions is worse than $2, and you have to discard a lot to get more than +2 actions from this. On the other hand the ability to get +3 or more actions is really strong on some very special boards, so I don't know. Seems like this card would be extremely niche if anything. Maybe if this cost less, or gave +1 card in addition (or maybe +1$? for a lesser buff), it would be better.


Villa: The wording is weird, but basically it's this: whenever you draw a card, you don't. Remember how many cards you would have drawn for your entire turn , and then between your action and buy phases discard that many cards, and get +1VP for each card discarded. Also, multiple villas don't stack, since the first villa replaces the draw effect and the second villa has nothing left to replace.

This card has the problem of being completely useless on a board with no +card effects. Which is rare, but it happens. At least Tunnel is the best VP you can get for $3, so it might have some use if there are no discard effects, but this doesn't even give that. Also, I feel that this card could lead to a degenerate never-ending game where people just play out their engine with this in it, gain 12 VP, and buy nothing forever, and that this degenerate game is much easier to set up than a degenerate game involving monuments.

Township: pretty interesting. You could use it as an island and tuck away your bad cards (probably what will happen most of the time) or try to build a megaturn with this. This might be a bit too good as a "trasher" though (compare to Upgrade - this doesn't give you silvers for your estates but doesn't lower your score either, and gives you +2 actions). Although native village is probably better for the megaturn because of the cheap cost, just like how workshop/gardens is better than ironworks/gardens.

[Algebraist]

Small point on lucky break: the return effect should probably say "You may...", just to avoid the silly ritual of having to trash a card and gain it straight back when you don't have anything more constructive to do.

[ftl]

Lucky break seems like a lot of fun. An anti-swindler, if you will. Seems like it would be reasonable as a curse trasher - switching curses for coppers isn't so bad, especially since they go right into your hand so it doesn't slow you down much. It's okay as an estate trasher, since you can trash estates for more lucky breaks, and lucky breaks are cantrips so they don't get in the way. I suspect there would be times to buy it for more than 2 in a game with Swindler, or in a game with cursing and low or bad terminal draw and no other trashing.

 Have you tried a game with Lucky break and peddler? Seems like it would be horribly degenerate in a lovely way. (I suspect that a good strategy is to buy lots of lucky breaks, then buy peddlers, then return peddlers to supply for provinces and re-buy them. I wonder if that's fast enough compared to like Smithy or Envoy-BM? If there's a +buy around, then this would be even crazier.)

Scavenger - the 'discard source' isn't a good way of phrasing it, I think, because the game rules don't come with a concept of the 'source' of a discard. You may want to phrase it as "while this is in play, for each action card you play that causes you to discard one or more cards, +$1". This way it's clear what's being counted - action cards with a discard property. That's a well-defined in-game term. It won't double-trigger on Hamlet, but is there any other card for which it matters? And do you really need it to doubletrigger on Hamlet? It seems like rule clarity would take precedence over that edge case. 

[Tejayes]

Lucky break seems like a lot of fun. An anti-swindler, if you will. Seems like it would be reasonable as a curse trasher - switching curses for coppers isn't so bad, especially since they go right into your hand so it doesn't slow you down much. It's okay as an estate trasher, since you can trash estates for more lucky breaks, and lucky breaks are cantrips so they don't get in the way. I suspect there would be times to buy it for more than 2 in a game with Swindler, or in a game with cursing and low or bad terminal draw and no other trashing.

 Have you tried a game with Lucky break and peddler? Seems like it would be horribly degenerate in a lovely way. (I suspect that a good strategy is to buy lots of lucky breaks, then buy peddlers, then return peddlers to supply for provinces and re-buy them. I wonder if that's fast enough compared to like Smithy or Envoy-BM? If there's a +buy around, then this would be even crazier.)

That's pretty much what I intended with what I suspect is the inspiration for this card -- Repairs from my now-mostly-forgotten-because-I've-just-been-too-busy Locomotion fan expansion. The only differences between Repairs and Lucky Break is that Lucky Break has the +1 Card, and Repairs lets you swap out for a cheaper card if you want (like repairing Forge into Gold or Grand Market, which is nice because I find myself Forging cards into Forges quite a bit).

The main idea with Repairs, though, was to hopefully negate that icky feeling when you buy one $X card instead of another $X card, and once you draw it, you wish you had bought the other one. Lucky Break would definitely be better with this, though, thanks to the +1 Card.

Also, Repairs was priced at $4, which I now agree is too much, even with the fun reactions with what I realize is too few cards. Perhaps the no +Card version would be okay at $2, but I still feel the cantrip Lucky Break would be a little overpowered at $2 due to the Estate swap trick. Then again, $3 would completely negate the Estate trick, making it underpowered... GAH, I wish I had the resources to playtest more!

In any case, thank you SO much for working with one of my favorite Locomotion cards, Chriamon!

[Jack Rudd]

Lucky Break - 2$
+1 Card
+1 Action
Return a card from your hand to the supply. If you did, gain a card costing the same amount as the returned card and put it into your hand.

Interesting. I suggest playtesting with Ill-Gotten-Gains, Border Village or Peddler.

[WanderingWinder]

Lucky Break - 2$
+1 Card
+1 Action
Return a card from your hand to the supply. If you did, gain a card costing the same amount as the returned card and put it into your hand.

Interesting. I suggest playtesting with Ill-Gotten-Gains, Border Village or Peddler.

Throw inn in there too.

[LastFootnote]

Or, for Lucky Break, you could just specify that it must be a differently named card than the one you return to the Supply.

[Titandrake]

Lucky Break: As noted, has interesting effects with on-gain cards from Hinterlands. Not sure on the power level: it seems okay, you could do some funny things if you managed to get a Talisman in play with this (probably through Black Market.) What happens if you try gaining a Nomad Camp though? Top of the deck or your hand?

Silver Amulet: If the card you discard is a dead one, it's usually better than Gold. Otherwise, it's a Silver. By the time you buy and get to play a $5 card, the proportion of dead cards (Victory) in your deck has likely dropped off enough that it's not going to be better than Gold too much of the time. Overall, I don't think you can do much to change this, but I also don't think you need to.

Battle Charge: Seems a bit too good. In a BM-deck, you open Battle Charge and reveal an Estate. Then you lose nothing if you have to discard, and if $2 isn't the highest cost you get to trash your Estate and your opponent's $3 or $4 card. In mid-game you reveal Copper, which will likely be trashed. Might be bad if you've got $8 in hand, but overall shouldn't be terrible, and I don't see revealing a non-Copper card as being useful. Late-game you just reveal a Province/Duchy and possibly hit the key Victory/Treasure cards. In an engine deck, I think that it could get pretty ugly: There's a reason Saboteur does nothing else besides attack and costs $5. It does have a built in "protect the highest cost" effect though. Idk, I'm just wary of a deck that goes KC-KC-Battle-Battle which has a Province/Colony in hand that thoroughly wrecks everyone else. The only safe VP would be the most expensive one, which could become impossible to get if your deck is ruined enough. (Saboteur has a similar danger, except that Estates are safe and Saboteur can't draw more copies of itself)

Scavenger: Oh man, this would be fun to play, except I worry a bit about how degenerate this could get. If you compare it to Menagerie (which gets boosted by self-discard as well), seems okay, even though Menagerie is a very good $3. Having 2 or more Scavengers in play starts to look a little scary though...

Celtic Metal: Seems about right.

Untapped Ruins: In Hinterlands secret history, I think Donald X said Crossroads used to be +1 action for each Action in hand, +1 card for each Victory in hand, and it was still $2. So if you consider that if you have 2 other actions in hand, old Crossroads would give +3 actions and this would give +3 as well if you discarded 2, it doesn't look very good. It behaves differently when you have a large action chain, as you'll have more cards to discard than actions in hand, but I agree, probably needs a boost of some sort (drop cost to $3? Add +1 card? Both?)

Villa: Wording is a little weird. 2 interpretations: You draw the card, then discard cards later, or you don't draw, then discard later. From earlier posts, I'll assume the 2nd one. However, unlike randomdragoon, I think as worded it would stack: when you try to draw a card, both Villas would trigger. The difference is that each card discarded would satisfy only one Villa. So each card you would draw causes you to discard 2 cards and get 2VP if you had the cards in hand. Worried about "the endless game": it will eventually be in someone's interest to trash down to a deck of Villas and card draw, which leads to large VP gaining and no hand to buy cards with. So, the game doesn't end, and one player just gains VP forever. Hard to judge this one, but I think that the effect can't exist fundamentally without a rework.

Township: Interesting as a pseudo-trasher, can lead to mega-turns that wouldn't normally be viable. I like it.

[AJD]

Lucky Break - 2$
+1 Card
+1 Action
Return a card from your hand to the supply. If you did, gain a card costing the same amount as the returned card and put it into your hand.

Interesting. I suggest playtesting with Ill-Gotten-Gains, Border Village or Peddler.

Not that different from the interaction of Salvager with these, right?

[Titandrake]

Lucky Break - 2$
+1 Card
+1 Action
Return a card from your hand to the supply. If you did, gain a card costing the same amount as the returned card and put it into your hand.

Interesting. I suggest playtesting with Ill-Gotten-Gains, Border Village or Peddler.

Not that different from the interaction of Salvager with these, right?

Well, except for the bit where this is non-terminal.

[Tejayes]

Lucky Break - 2$
+1 Card
+1 Action
Return a card from your hand to the supply. If you did, gain a card costing the same amount as the returned card and put it into your hand.

Interesting. I suggest playtesting with Ill-Gotten-Gains, Border Village or Peddler.

Not that different from the interaction of Salvager with these, right?

Well, except for the bit where this is non-terminal.

Also, with just a little bit of money, you can Salvage IGGs and BVs (and Inns, thanks WW) into Provinces and Peddlers into Colonies. Not so much with Lucky Break.

[Algebraist]

Lucky Break - 2$
+1 Card
+1 Action
Return a card from your hand to the supply. If you did, gain a card costing the same amount as the returned card and put it into your hand.

Interesting. I suggest playtesting with Ill-Gotten-Gains, Border Village or Peddler.

Not that different from the interaction of Salvager with these, right?

Well, except for the bit where this is non-terminal.

And also the bit where the replacement goes straight to your hand. So with several lucky breaks in hand (not hard to get, since it's a cheap cantrip which turns estates into itself) you can repeatedly turn your IGG into an IGG for lots of cursing, or your BV into BV for lots of whatever $5 you want.

[rinkworks]

The best version of the Untapped Ruins idea was in WW's Conquest expansion, if I remember right:

Action - $3
+2 Cards
You may discard any number of cards from your hand.  +1 Action per card discarded.

I've tested this pretty exhaustively, and it leads to terrific gameplay.  I thought it might be a $4 card at first, but $3 seems more correct for some reason.

The main choices are:  (1) Moat, (2) Cantrip with a little cycling, (3) Inn.  None of the three are massively powerful, but being able to choose between them can be strong.

Untapped Ruins is more expensive and less powerful.  Not that you have to be consistent with someone else's fan card, but it's a signal that it's probably pretty weak.  And indeed, if you look at the possible choices, they're all absolutely terrible.  You start off down a card, and the only way to eke out even a tiny benefit is to continue to sabotage your hand.  Compare with Hamlet, which is cheaper and starts you off at a more favorable baseline.  Plus it even lets you snag a +Buy, which is going to be valuable more often than +3 or more Actions will.